I got a chance to hop in the ocean twice on Tuesday. I started with a trip to the north side of the Pismo pier for lunch. I was out on Monday night in the same spot and the surf was great so I was hoping Tuesday would still be decent. It started well but deteriorated pretty badly after about 30 minutes when the wind started to pick up. I caught a few decent waves while I was out, but mainly floated and waited. While I was out just floating around my spidey-sense started tingling a little bit and I though I saw something cruise by underwater. I figured it was a false alarm and I was imagining things to make my wait a little more interesting. Well… today I read online that there was a confirmed Shark sighting down there within an hour of me being in the water. Hmmm…. makes you wonder a bit huh? If that’s what it was well that just reconfirms my hypothesis that they know enough to not eat us because we’re just not that tasty.

Later in the day I was out at Avila Beach to meet Dani and her cousin for a swim. They’re both doing the Pacific Grove Triathlon early next month and needed some kelp krawling practice. Dani had never swam through kelp before and asked me if I knew a spot… I knew just the place! My plan was to go out and swim the left side of the buoy line and then keep going to the reef buoy that we always avoid due to its kelpiosity.

The swim out was pretty easy, and we regrouped at the first buoy. I decided it was best to let the girls get in front of me for this swim so I could keep an eye on them. Dani hadn’t done an Avila swim in quite a while and her cousin was here for the first time. I worked with her a little bit on her ocean swimming on the way to the end of the buoy line. Relaxing, stretching out her stroke, that kind of stuff.

At the far buoy we set our sites on the reef buoy. What I wanted us to do was swim out towards it and then do a big circle around it keeping the buoy on our left shoulder and then swimming back to the regular buoy line. Everyone was swimming along all nice and happy until we hit that kelp. Dani in particular was not a fan. I was too fast for the group if I freestyled so I mainly sculled with a little breast stroke through the kelp. There was a big open water pocket in the middle and I stopped there and observed while my friends kept swimming around the buoy. They were doing ok but working a little too hard. As they rounded the buoy I started to sight out the way back and noticed a sea otter a few meters away. He didn’t look real excited to see people out there… probably not a real common occurrence. After mean mugging me for a little bit he dove under the water never to be seen again. I hustled the three of us out of there so he could get back to his evening.

We made a short stop at the end of the buoy line to regroup and talk about the next part of the swim. The girls were looking tired from the kelp krawling so I decided we’d just aim to go back the way we came. The swim back was going to be a bit harder because it’d be against the current, but there wasn’t much chop going on so it wouldn’t be too bad. The glare however sucked, a lot. We made it to the middle buoy and I decided we should just angle towards the beach since we couldn’t see anything straight ahead. On the way in we made Dani’s cousin’s life a little harder by doing a “race simulation” which mainly consisted of swimming all up in her business. So over her, tangling up arms, bumping, etc. The idea was to get her used to being bothered while swimming so that when it happens in her race it won’t be that big of a deal.

Back at the beach we body surfed a couple waves and then walked it in. I changed and made my way home and they ran off to the movies. We didn’t swim super far, only about 1000m, but it was a good experience builder for everyone.

Lynn (swimmer), Gail (mom & feed timer), Julie (kayaker), Me (pace swimmer), Roni (feed mixer & cheer captain)

This weekend I went along on my first Santa Barbara Channel swim as a crew person/swimmer for my friend Lynn Kubasek. We traveled a 12+ mile course from Anacapa Island to Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard. It was such a great experience full of fun people, sea life, and extraordinary views of parts of California you’d never see from dry land.

The whole thing started Saturday afternoon in Ventura. I was set to meet Lynn and the rest of the crew at 6pm at a restaurant down by the harbor. I decided to come down a couple hours early and test my luck with the local surf conditions. Outside the mouth of the harbor there are some spots to surf and although the wind was kicking there were some ok waves rolling through. I grabbed my bodyboard and fins then walked across the sand towards the water. I sat down for a while to observe the people already out and the waves coming in before picking my spot. There were a lot of surfers out but no good ones. Apparently this wasn’t the hot spot to be at for the good guys. I grabbed a spot outside of them a bit (mainly because most of them were bad at controlling their boards and I didn’t want to get hit), and picked off some waves. Totally fun pre dinner session :)

After getting out of the water I went and explored the touristy area by the harbor and found the restaurant we’d be eating at. Right around 6 I ran into Lynn and her mom and we went inside for a beer while we waited for the rest of our party. Lynn was a little concerned with the wind and water temperature. I could personally attest to the “warm” water after my quick trip in just 30 minutes earlier which I think relieved her a bit. The wind however concerned me a bit too. It’s always windy down in this area in the late afternoon, but this felt pretty strong, we all hoped Sunday morning would be way mellower. After a little bit Julie and Roni showed up and we had dinner and talked about this swim, other swims, and all the usual stuff swimmer folk talk about. Post dinner we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and sent Lynn to bed while the rest of us stayed up a while with a couple bottles of wine, some candy, and more conversation :)

We all got up at 3am to make sure we could get to the boat by 4. We packed all of our stuff together and caravaned over to where the Tuna Thumper is docked inside the harbor. We got the kayak off my rack and loaded everything onto the boat and met the crew. The Captain gave a quick safety talk and then Jane (our observer and event host for the Semana Nautica 6 mile swim) gave her Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association spiel. Afterwards Lynn went to lay down for a little bit while the rest of us stayed up and talked about our impending adventure. It took a while to get out to Anacapa and I was feeling just ok with the motion in the ocean. I took some Dramamine the night before and that morning, and also got some of those goofy pressure point wrist bands… figured why not, I’ll try anything to keep from getting sick. I eventually lost that fight and threw up a little bit right before we got to the island. The good news is once I got that out of my system I was golden for the rest of the day and could even eat on the boat which is a point I don’t get to often.

The island itself is a very dramatic and beautiful landmass that juts straight up out of the ocean. Sharply angled rocks and an arch all waited to greet us as the boat shifted into neutral to float as we prepped our swimmer. Lynn was inside in her signature blue bikini and white cap getting herself put together while Roni got to work lubing up any possible rub spots.

Once we had Lynn all set we launched Julie in the kayak then gave Lynn the target start spot on the island. Since this side of the island is just a sheer wall of rock the start consists of placing your hands on the island as opposed to clearing the water completely by foot. With her target set we tossed Lynn off the boat and she swam to the island with Julie. Jane gave her the go ahead to start and she began stroking for the mainland!

What Lynn luckily missed completely however was Julie taking a dive right at the start. It looks like she was so focused on watching Lynn right there against the rocks that she missed an incoming swell that tipped her out. She recovered quickly and was right back at Lynn’s side really quickly. I’m telling you, this whole kayaking thing looks easy at a distance but there’s a little more too it when open ocean is involved!

As we started the swim I was a little concerned about the conditions. It felt like the wind could whip up at any moment and there was a pretty healthy roll to the water. We all just kept hoping that we’d hit shore before things deteriorated. Lynn was her normal cheery self out there. Smiling while breathing and shouting a “woooo!” back at us whenever she saw us cheering for her :) Lynn was swimming on the starboard (right) side of the boat, but early on the captain wanted to move her to port because the breeze was going to blow diesel fumes across her all day over there. That would have been a total break from her plan though and we didn’t want to rattle her focus that early on. It was decided to let it ride and see if it bothered her or not. She never complained about it so we never switched her sides. Later on when I got in I totally noticed it though, I guess she was just really in the zone out there.

I alternated watching from the deck and getting tiny naps inside the boat to make up for that 3am wake up call. After about 2 1/2 hours they let me know that Julie would be coming out of the water and it was up to me whether I wanted to swim or paddle alongside Lynn. I opted for swim, I always like swimming with Lynn, and got suited up.

As Julie paddled back to the Tuna Thumper I jumped out into the water. It was brisk for a moment and then mellowed out almost immediately. I think we were running something like 67-68 degrees all day. I sprinted around to Lynn and set myself on her right side where Julie had previously been with the kayak and got to work finding her pace and holding steady with her best I could.

Once I got over the initial excitement of jumping in I notices that the ocean was full of invertebrate excitement. Tons of salps were everywhere at the surface, but little guys not the big ones I saw in the Catalina Channel last week. It was weird to feel these jelly balls bouncing off you in every stroke, but they don’t sting so it’s all good. The problem was fun little no-see-um style jellies were in the mix as well. I started to feel stings here and there as I swam. Nothing too strong, but enough to get my attention… I even caught one of the little bastards with my ear! Who knows how long Lynn had already been putting up with this?!

all the little red dots are stings… had them all over the place

We chugged along at a much better rate than I would have anticipated. Lynn was really moving above the pace she normally has in action when I swim with her in Laguna. I did my best to stay at least a meter to her side to not get in her way or interrupt her stroke. I’m typically a right side breather but I switched to left for my whole shift so that I could keep eyes on Lynn the whole way. She was really strong and smooth out there, I was impressed. I don’t know how far we went during that period but the progress we made felt like much more than I had expected. The oil platforms that mark 3 miles left to shore kept getting bigger and bigger at a rapid pace. I think the swell was pushing pretty perfectly behind us for a good amount of time and really helped move things along. I usually seem to catch the ocean going the wrong way so this was a nice change of pace :)

I stayed in for about 90 minutes and made it through 3 of her feedings without taking one of my own. During that time we were also joined by a pod of dolphins. I could see the crew on the boat pointing and smiling but never spotted the dolphins myself. I did hear a few squeaks underwater though so I know they were close! At feed number three Julie relaunched in the kayak and I swam back to the boat. I felt real good and knew that Lynn had this thing in the bag.

As we swam on there were whales 100m off in the distance which was really cool to see. They were too far out for pictures, but you could very clearly see them surface for air and dive back into the ocean. Super cool. We also had a pod of porpoises come galloping past us. One even swam right under Julie’s kayak and Lynn! I got a short video of them approaching us…

The other sight that was pretty cool to see up close were the oil platforms. I’ve done the drive along 101 on the coast about a quarter billion times and the oil platforms have been a fixed part of the view since I’ve lived out here, but I’ve never seen one in detail. They’re sort of cool looking although I’d rather they just weren’t there at all.

Once we passed the platform we were in the homestretch and everyone was feeling pretty good. I think at this point we lost the push from the ocean as things flattened out to be rather still. Lynn kept moving smoothly and at a great pace and Julie was doing and excellent job of watching her nonbreathing side from the kayak.

Lynn had been anticipating an 8 hour swim but it was looking like we’d be a lot closer to 7! As we neared Oxnard we started making plans to swim her in. We brought in Julie and the kayak and then tossed me out the back. I swam with her solo for a little while and then Julie and Roni came out to join us. We swam 4 across to the beach. It was great to watch the houses along the shore get bigger and bigger until you started to really feel the swell undulate below you as you neared the surf zone. We all held back a bit but then noticed a small group of people watching the finish. We didn’t want anyone to grab Lynn up out of the water as she exited per channel rules so I tried to surge forward a bit to be real close to make sure one of us could warn people away if they made the attempt.

Lynn hit the beach without incident, cleared the water and the boat fired off a horn to let us know she was done! 7 hours and 8 minutes, almost a full hour under her goal time! Awesome! We shared a round of hugs and high fives on the beach before wading back out and swimming the quarter mile or so back to the boat. Everyone was in a great mood, smiles all around, this swim had such a great vibe… I’m so stoked I managed to get on board at the last minute for this!

We got Lynn on the boat first then the rest of us followed. We got her dried off and resting inside and she recovered really quickly. She looked fresh and happy and was talking all kinds about how much fun she had out there. The Tuna Thumper motored us back to the harbor and we unloaded and then scattered off back to our homes in various directions. I have one more channel swim to crew for this month on Wednesday night into Thursday for my buddy and fellow swim blogger Evan. I’m excited to get that show on the road, and possibly even sleep again someday :) This channel stuff is fun but I need a nap!

This week I had the honor of assisting my friend Cliff from Colorado in his second swim from Catalina to the Mainland. We did a 10 mile training swim together a few months back and he added me to his crew as a pace swimmer once he had his crossing situation all figured out. The goal was to get out there and charge it full speed to see how fast he could make it across.

My portion of the adventure started Wednesday morning at my house up in Pismo. I had to pack for the trip and get all my swim gear in order for a boat trip. From there I drove to Santa Barbara to pick up Evan who joined us last minute as a pace swimmer as well. Evan swims Catalina next week and this was a totally perfect opportunity to preview what a Catalina swim is all about and figure out how he wants to run his swim. We grabbed lunch in town and then drove all the way down to my friend (and Cliff’s observer) Lynn’s house in Laguna Beach. Traffic added an extra hour to the drive but we did manage to have a spare hour to play in the waves at Oak Street Beach… we had bodyboards in the truck just in case :) The waves were beautiful, great shapes, fun to surf and the water was warm. We only caught a few waves, it was crowded out there, but easily could have spent all day floating off the Laguna coast!

After leaving the beach we went back to Lynn’s and got to work on picking up a kayak on the other side of town. We got it secured to my truck rack and then Evan and I made our way towards San Pedro in my truck and Lynn in her car. The drive there was a lot harder than it needed to be. We got sidetracked into some kind of epic detour that took us all kinds of places in Long Beach we probably didn’t want to be. Eventually though we landed at the 22nd Street Landing where the Outrider was docked. We were almost certain that we were going to be way behind everyone else, but we were actually some of the first ones there. Niel, our other observer, found me in the parking lot and helped me unload the kayak and get it down to the boat. As other crew members started to trickle in Evan and I both went upstairs to get some dinner to go since we hadn’t eaten since lunch. I was on the fence as to whether I should eat or not given my history of puking on boats, but I figured I needed to at least try to ingest the calories.

Somewhere around 9pm the boat shoved off and started to motor out towards the open ocean. The captain gave us a briefing on some coast guard stuff, Lynn briefed us on the rules of the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation, and then Cliff walked us through his swim plan with fancy laminated guides. The base plan for pacers was for one of us to jump in every other hour. So he’d swim the first hour solo, then Evan, then solo, then me, etc. Once everyone knew what they were supposed to do he went down below to rack out for a little bit and I hung out in the galley until I started feeling a little sick… dammit… I had a scopalamine patch on but I think I waited too long to put it on and it hadn’t had a chance to fully kick in yet.

I stood out back and watched the lights of LA disappear off into the distance as a red moon rose over it. Besides the puking that was just about to ensue it was a pretty magical moment :) I spent time talking with Neil, Evan and Cliff’s sister Andrea out there and intermittently leaned over the boat to donate my dinner back to the ocean. Good bye teriyaki chicken breast and baked potato, it was good while it lasted.

Around 11pm we got to the island and woke Cliff up so he could start gearing up to go for a swim. Bottles were mixed, pits were lubed, new goggles unwrapped, glowsticks attached and swim caps borrowed. He forgot his usual cap so I supplied an extra silicone cap I had in my bag that I tossed in at the last minute earlier that morning. Turns out that was a good idea! As the time got nearer we moved to the stern of the boat to look around at what we could see in the dark. Plenty of little silver fish were hanging out in the spot light looking for a snack and you could hear seals exhaling off in the dark as they chased the fish. There was plenty of kelp right there as well. Initial water temp readings were at 68-69 degrees which is pretty amazing.

Just shy of midnight we got Cliff’s kayaker Kevin in the water and soon after we tossed him in as well. Cliff swam under the spot light of the boat to the beach in the cove. Through the kelp, under a buoy line, and up on to the shore. He put his hands up to let us know he was clear and the observers had the captain give his horn a little blast to get him going. Cliff took off like a shot. Evan and I were both impressed with how much distance he was putting between himself and the island early on, especially since there was an unfriendly current working against him that he didn’t really know about just yet.

I watched him swim for about 30-45 minutes and then decided it would be best if I caught a nap. I still wasn’t feeling so good and had a few hours before I’d be needed to I went down below to snooze. I was still worried about my seasickness and the fact that there was nowhere to puke in the bunk room. I ended up taking a big ziplock bag that was in my backpack, emptying it out and putting it under my pillow just in case… luckily I didn’t need it!

I woke up close to 3am which was perfect timing for my swim shift. I suited up, had a deckhand tie a glowstick to my suit’s tag, got on my cap & goggles, then had Neil duct tape a glowstick to my head since my goggle straps were under my cap. Once I was ready to go they gave me a choice of jumping off the side of the boat or out the back. I opted for the side since I’d get to Cliff sooner that way.

I jumped out into the darkness and the cool Pacific waters woke me right up. So much better to be in the water than on the boat. The water was rolling pretty well and it had some chop working as well. I swam heads up free to Cliff and got myself in position. At this time we had the boat on the far left, then the kayak, and then me. Cliff breathes left so this way he could see everything. I was impressed from the get go with Cliff’s pace at this point in the swim. He was really pushing the pace and I had to work hard to keep up. I forgot to hit the start button on my GPS, but I did after he took a feed and we were pacing for 25 minute miles. Once I got settled in with everything I did everything I could to hold on and not run into Cliff. While all this was happening I was losing all my glowsticks. I couldn’t believe it. The taped one flopped off in a wave and the one on my suit came loose at some point. Whoops.

As we swam on I got stung a few times. I caught two fine feeling tentacles with my left arm about 5 minutes apart. They didn’t hurt too bad, just a little zap. I also got tagged on the back of my legs but I didn’t even feel those until I got out of the water. About 40 minutes into my shift I started losing Cliff. I’d try to sprint up to him but I was slipping. I had thrown up so much on the way to the island that there just wasn’t anything left in my tank. Once I realized I was going to become a problem I told Kevin to tell the boat I’d be coming in early because I couldn’t hang anymore, I was gassing out. I swung left towards the boat and had to chase it down as it drifted out of gear away from me. Luckily the lights on the back made sighting for me really easy although they may not have been able to see me so well since I wasn’t lit up with anything anymore. I climbed on board a little disappointed in myself. I dried off and went to lay down again to conserve my energy.

Not too long later Neil came and woke me up. Kevin needed to get off the kayak for a little bit and they wanted to use me as a relief kayaker for an hour or so. That sounded fine to me, I’m ok in a kayak and the sky was greying up so it would be light out. Well, this plan didn’t go so well. Kevin paddled up to the stern of the boat and a deckhand held the bowline on the kayak while Neil grabbed the tethered kayak paddle. Kevin scooted across to the metal landing and we got him on the boat. Now the tricky part… dumping a large man into a small kayak with flowers on it off the back of a boat while the ocean undulates with 6 foot swells. It went as well as you would imagine. I got dumped 3 times. Each more dramatic than the last. I was getting progressively more pissed off and embarrassed. Each time I went over I made saving the feed bottles my first priority and then me and the boat. I cut myself up in a few spots, nothing too bad, more just bruised ego. Before attempt number 4 occurred the captain nixed it. The sea was too rough, it wasn’t going to happen and Evan and Cliff were starting to swim off course without the boat to guide them. I climbed back on defeated as the engines roared back to life. I felt pretty shitty about that. I was assured that the odds of getting anyone launched in those conditions were pretty poor, but I hate letting the team down. Kevin told me that he’d actually been dumped out of the kayak once earlier while trying to resupply from the boat, so at least I wasn’t alone in taking these unplanned mini swims. He also said later that seeing me get my ass kicked helped him figure out how to get back in the kayak later once the captain allowed it again. At least Rob’s Kayak Debacle of Twenty Eleven served a purpose.

I changed back into dry clothes and watched the guys swim for a while and started thinking about my own next swim. I started to try and take in some calories so I’d have something in the tank this time. I got down some Gatorade and a bottle of water. Nothing solid yet, didn’t want to push it.

When my next shift was coming and I was getting suited up Neil asked if I wanted to toss my fins on this time in case I bonked again. I figured that would be best just in case so I found my duckfeet and strapped them on after duct taping my feet to cover the holes I had put in them trying to get in the kayak. When the deckhand came down to let me off the boat I only had choice of the stern since I was all Scuba Steve-ed out. I stepped on to the platform to a breath and jumped back out into the channel. I swam up to Cliff real fast with my fins and found that the order of things had changed. The boat was still extreme left, then me, then Cliff and Kevin was on the outside in the kayak. I felt much better on this round and could have gone without the fins, they were a bit too much but better to be too fast and slow down then to be to slow and unable to catch up. I drug my feet and did my best to hold as even as I could to Cliff’s pace without pulling ahead of him. In talking with him at feeds he was hurting pretty good at this point and worried his stroke was falling apart but that was all in his head. His stroke was strong and steady, he was swimming really well and showing no signs of breaking down. His stroke count did vary throughout the evening, but it largely stayed between 50-55 the whole way.

Since it was light out for this hour of swimming I could see down into the water. It was a really dramatic blue that I never see at my beach and the visibility went off until it just turned darker blue. We were swimming over jellyfish and a lot of salps. Salps are jelly looking but not jellyfish. They look like transparent jelly balls with a golden center and they either float about solo or in big trains, I saw them in groups upwards of 10-15. It was very cool and a little distracting… had to keep my focus on Cliff’s swim, we weren’t out there for me to check out the local invertebrates :)

Before I knew it I had to go. Cliff took a feed and I was called back to the Outrider. I got on board and was feeling a lot better about my contribution to the whole expedition now after the earlier kayak thing and gassing out 15 minutes early on my first swim shift.

We were nearing shore but we weren’t on pace to hit Cliff’s goal time. The ocean was throwing a pretty mean current at him along with all the roughness on the surface. He was saying that it was probably the toughest conditions he’s ever had to swim in before. He didn’t seem to let that get to him though and he soldiered on towards the coast which was starting to form up from behind the marine layer. Most of the crew was on deck and awake at this point watching Cliff swim and checking out the big pod of dolphins that had made their way past us.

After a while the observers noticed a drop in Cliff’s stroke rate so we got Evan ready to go for another round but only a 30 minute one to get him back up to speed and save some time on the clock for Evan to be able to swim in with Cliff at the finish (you’re only allowed 3 hours in the water per pace swimmer). Upon further review we don’t think Cliff was actually having trouble so much as needing to pee :) But I’m sure swimming with Evan helped anyways. By the time he got out we were within about 1 and half nautical miles from the finish.

Evan and I watched from inside the galley to stay warm and keep track of the distance to mark on the GPS screen. Once there were about 3/10′s of a nautical mile to go the observers told us to get set to jump in again to swim Cliff to the beach since he wanted to be able to finish with us there. I put a wet swim suit on since I was out of fresh ones, tucked my camera in it and tossed on goggles but skipped a cap. I jumped off the stern first and swam fast to catch up, Evan went shortly after me. Evan posted up on Cliff’s left side, I took the right, and we swam that last quarter mile shoulder to shoulder to the California mainland.

The finish was kind of daunting. It was all rocks with a strong surf surge pushing at it. The waves didn’t really break at this spot, but they’d push you way forward and then pull you back out towards the ocean as the next one came your way. We let Cliff pull out ahead and get a foot down. He started to clamber carefully up the rocks while keeping an eye out for incoming surf. Evan and I waited just a few meters away where we could put a foot down and get pushed around by the water but not tossed onto the shore. Cliff slowly but surely worked his way up the stony coast until he was above the water line and lifted his weary arms above his head in victory!

I stayed in the surf zone and watched Cliff delicately scoot back towards the water to swim back to the boat. I wanted to be within easy reach in case the ocean decided to give him a beat down as a going away present. He made it out just fine and we finally shared a channel legal high five. He was one happy boy to be done and I was proud of my friend and excited that I got to share this adventure with him. We swam back to the boat got him showered and dried off and motored back to port happy and successful!

Crossing number two was in the bag, and amazingly it was the same time as his crossing last year! 10:41… amazing. The big difference though was that last year his swim had flat beautiful serene conditions… this year the captain assured him he had probably the worst conditions he’s seen so far in terms of currents and other motions in the ocean.

Now that Cliff’s swim is done I have a couple more to prep for in the next few days. I’ll be pace swimming for our observer Lynn on Sunday from Anacapa back to the mainland (it’s a 12.4ish mile swim), and then Catalina again with my fellow pacer Evan. I’m excited to keep this channel stoke alive!

Last night Niel and I made our first foray to the other side of the Poly Pier and to Olde Port Beach. I had a networking group meeting thing going on at Olde Port Beach and decided to make an unnecessarily dramatic entrance :) I floated the idea out to some of the other guys last week and Niel decided that he was in.

We met up over by Olde Port Beach and got ready. We planned to leave his car there and then drive my truck over to Avila. While getting ourselves put together we watched the water a bit and there was a fair amount of birds feeding a little way out of our intended path. It was enough to make me feel a little uneasy but not enough for us to pull the plug on the swim. Since we were going a good distance away from anywhere we could easily get out and we’d be on the boat-ier side of the bay we both brought bright colored rescue cans to swim with on our journey. I had my yellow one and Niel had the official Avila Dolphins red can. Because of this I also put on a rashguard to minimize chaffing from the strap.

We got in the water on the left hand side of the Avila Pier and swam down to the tip of it. The water felt great, probably low 60′s, and the current was actually pushing towards the Port which was great because it’s usually the other way around in the evening!

We took a quick stop at the tip of the pier and reaffirmed that we were aiming for the usual cross braces on the Poly Pier that we would swim to if we were doing a there and back. Only problem was it was way to sunny to see anything down there… the glare was pretty amazing. I just shot for about where I figured it would be and used a saddle in the mountains to guide me. That worked out pretty well and we hit the pier within about 10m of our goal without being able to see it for the most part.

Up until this point neither of us had ever been to the other side of the pier. It’s been a weird unofficial border to our local open water adventuring. I was excited to go under the pier though to check that out. It’s really long and all metal. Very different from your typical wooden pier. And aesthetically it was just really interesting. We didn’t really swim under so much as allow ourselves to drift under in the current while looking around and shooting a few pictures.

Once on the other side we evaluated the bird situation and the route we wanted to take. The idea was to angle towards the beach and then swim parallel up it to where my group was having its bonfire. I stopped a couple times to get back in line with Niel so that we didn’t separate too much out there in this unexplored territory. Even in our line we had some birds diving here and there. I had a pelican take flight like 2m from my head which was pretty exciting! I started spotting seals too… they were following us to see what we were up to.

The glare was still really bad and I had a hard time seeing where we were. I figured it out when the swells started to really lift me up, and then shortly thereafter I stuck my hand right down into the sand. We swam a little too far into the shallows and had to move it over a bit to keep going. We swam another 50-75m until we hit the edge of a group of pelicans just floating around and then turned in towards the beach. A couple of my friends were there cameras in hand to greet us.

The swim added up to 2000m flat and was a pretty interesting route. Not sure I’d want to do it too often with the boats and birds (and mystery warm spot in line with a pipe on the beach, ewww), but I’m glad we went and checked it out. Plus doing a point to point swim is always interesting and fun. Niel and I walked back to his car and changed. Up there we met a guy who had been watching us swim and is a photographer/ad type of guy from New York looking at moving to the area. I let him know there was actually a creative and marketing networking group meeting down on the beach if he wanted to go meet some people and as a board member I anointed him an official member :) With a new member recruited I guess we can call the swim a recruiting success, haha! Afterwards Niel drove me back to Avila to get my truck and then I took myself back to Olde Port Beach for the rest of my beach party/meeting. A good time all the way around :) I might have to do this again next year!

The upside to Boogie Monday is that I spend almost every Monday in the ocean. The downside is Monday evenings don’t necessarily coincide with there being any actual waves. Tonight was pretty flat with some 1-2 foot wave action. I still had fun, but I’m dying for something bigger… just for a day, please ocean? Maybe I’ll surf in Laguna on Wednesday when I’m down that way before I have to get on a boat in Long Beach for my buddy Cliff’s Catalina swim.

I met Dani down at the beach and she was hobbling all over. She ran a 50k (holy shit!) race over the weekend and hasn’t quite recovered. Instead of boogie boarding she stood in the water to ice her legs down and played with my camera until the batteries died.

The water felt pretty nice after a long day in a hot office. I was melting by the time 5 came around so some sea water was a nice respite from all that. I managed to catch a bunch of waves just not anything big enough to get in more than just a turn. I kept trying to get a 360 down out in the white water but I just didn’t have the speed for it… soon I will figure this out…

After a little while my friend Kim who swims some Wednesdays showed up randomly. She was in the neighborhood and thought we swam on Monday’s too. After finding no swimmers she got in a little run and then grabbed a boogie board out of her car and wandered into the ocean. It was kind of unexpected but nice to have a bonus sponger in the water :)

We chatted while waiting for sets to show up and I helped spot waves for her. After a little while I was done for the day and took my fins off and waded out. Kim went home and Dani and I stayed on the beach for a while to talk a little bit and then we moved at hobble speed back to her truck. Since she’s still not 100% from her run I think she might come out and paddle for my Tuesday night point to point swim with Niel. We’ll see… should be fun though!

In thoroughly unrelated news, I’ve stumbled into a new flavor of internet fame! Bearding! Haha :) I discovered a site called BeardsFromBelow.org a while ago and recently decided that I needed to submit an entry for the site. I mean I have a pretty substantial beard at this point and it is photographical from below so I was pretty much a shoe-in for this! I had my special lady friend take various shots while I experimented with how it was styled. We settled on one that makes me look like Beaker’s silhouette :) It’s a bizarre picture for sure. Since not everyone gets what I’m seeing I photoshopped together an image that should help a bit…

pretty rad huh? hahahaha… oh man…

Saturday was a pretty awesome day for me… put in damn near a full 8 hours at the beach! Can’t beat that! I didn’t have anything going on during the day but I knew my buddy Evan was going to come out to the beach eventually so I went out in the morning and planted myself in my usual spot. I watched some Cal Fire people workout a bit. Not sure what exactly they were up to, they’re not usually in Avila, but some of them opted for a swim to the buoy line and back in the middle of all their running about. Once they were gone I watched the water for a bit and did some reading… then, my personal favorite, beach nap time! :) I slept through the overcast conditions and woke up to a fantastically sunny day. I got up intermittently to answer a text but mainly just sprawled out on my mat and snored.

Closer to noon I ventured out into the water for a bit with my bodyboard to mess around and cool off. The wave situation wasn’t much to get excited about and they were really erratic and not coming in typical sets. I spent more time chatting with a stranger from the central valley than actually chasing after waves. After maybe half an hour I rode one into the beach and went back to my napping while I waited for Evan. He wasn’t exactly sure where I’d be but managed to figure out the location of my spot based on pictures from the blog, and he spotted me by the adventure beard poking out from under the hat that was covering my face :)

We spent probably at least an hour sitting on the sand catching up. I think the last time I saw him in person was back on New Year’s Eve when we did a little warm up swim in Santa Barbara for my Pismo Polar Bear swim the next day. Eventually we decided it’d be a good idea to actually swim, especially since the wildlife situation was still pretty mellow. I saw streams of birds way far out that looked like they were moving towards Shell Beach but nothing in the triangle course area.

On the way into the water we had a bunch of kids ask us questions. They wanted to know how far we were swimming and if we’d ever swam out to the rock. When I told them that I’ve swam all the way to Pismo before that got their attention, haha. As we swam away I heard them start talking about sharks… yay sharks :/

Evan is the kind of guy who wins races… stuff like multiple USMS National Championships last year, a Tampa Bay Marathon swim win this spring and a strong 3 place showing in MIMS back in June… he’s way out of my league speed wise. Luckily this was swim number two for him on the day and he at least started slow. I managed to hang through the first half of the triangle… mainly because he backstroked half of it.

As we wound around the buoys down by the point and headed towards the pier the chop really picked up. We were getting rocked pretty well out there. It wasn’t unmanageable but it definitely made life a little bit harder! At the tip of the pier we had a hard time sighting the creek buoy in the middle of all the swells and chop. I did a not so great job of explaining where it’d be and eventually gave up and recommended resighting half way there since we weren’t going to see anything until we were much closer.

Evan opened it up on this leg and pulled away from me. The only thing that got me closer was his occasional stop to try and find that buoy. It was pretty elusive! Once we got there we took a quick break and then swam it in towards the pier. We decided to swim in on that side instead of swimming under. While we were regrouping next to the pier a guy up top talked to us a little bit. He had been watching us all the way around and said that we had a seal trailing us the whole way. We saw our seal escort out at the creek buoy but I didn’t realize he’d been out there the whole time! Sneaky!

From there we swam in and I managed to bodysurf a decent little wave most of the way to the beach. I popped up right in the middle of a bunch of kids holding boogie boards. They didn’t quite know what to think of this large, bald, bearded, tattooed guy who just magically appeared out of the ocean :)

After our swim Evan and I got something to eat and eventually he had to roll out back to Santa Barbara. I’ll be seeing him again this week on Cliff’s Catalina Swim that we’re both crewing and then the week after for his own Catalina Swim that I’ll be crewing.

When we were working on leaving we spotted what turned into probably the biggest bait ball I’ve ever seen in Avila. At first it just engulfed the area around the point end of the buoy line and the reef buoy. Over time more and more birds showed up and it spread from the end of the beach nearest the point to a little past the buoy nearest the pier! It was a crazy amount of sealife all in one spot!

After Saturday’s bait ball and a legit sighting of the landlord by one of our swimmer’s fisherman friends we ended up not swimming on Sunday. I was bummed to lose a swim, but it is what it is. Can’t win’em all.

So a week after we all discovered the empty goodness of the Pioneer High School Pool it’s gone. School starts soon as was made very apparent by the large number of kids crawling all over the campus. Good news is that none of them were in the pool. I only had to share the place with one other dude… I felt a little cramped but got over it after a while :) The pool only had like one lane line in it so I had a big square of water all to myself so I decided to swim in a square just because I could!

I did a couple rounds counterclockwise and then flip turned and swam the other way around. It was fun to do something odd like that. After a while I stopped and messed around with my latest camera. After an eternity in warrantyland my last pentax magically turned into the newest model! Yay upgrade! I wonder if that’s what took so long… they were between model years and couldn’t fix my camera hence the replacement. Well whatever it was I’m just excited to have a nice camera again, it’s been a while!

Once I had my test shots out of the way I went back to swimming and did some kicking and then a few 150′s focusing on my stroke. After 3 or 4 Kelly showed up to swim with me. She did a quick warm up and then we came up with a loose plan to swim some more big squares. We did some in each direction and even one where we crossed the pool diagonally to make it more interesting. All told I have no idea at all how far we swam but we had fun.

We cooled down by messing with my camera a bit. That’s gotta count for a few yards right? :) I’m not sure that I’m going to get a swim in tomorrow, I might end up at a Surfrider thing instead to talk water quality testing, but I should get plenty of ocean time this weekend and maybe even a special mystery guest!

Been keeping salty this week… started with a one on one training swim on Tuesday afternoon. The weather was a little cloudy but that was burning off. We had a breeze blowing in from the Port and the surface was getting a little textured. There were big groups of birds out and about but they were really far off shore. Before Jen got to the beach I went and measured the water temp (58, our coldest swim together), and let the lifeguard know where we’d be swimming. My plan was to get in her first full ocean mile by doing the triangle route.

She met me down on the beach and we suited up and I explained the program. The first couple legs would all be familiar things we’ve already done before, but the other side of the pier would test what we’d learned previous by introducing new buoys and landmarks to sight off of. We waded in through a small pod of tourist boogie boarders in the white water and then made a line for the first buoy. You could already tell the water conditions were going to be rougher than we’ve had to date so this would be a really good experience builder on a lot of fronts.

Once we had swam down to the furthest buoy on the left side of the pier Jen asked me if the water was as rough as she thought it was. I assured her we had stumbled onto a real deal ocean swim and she was doing great. There was a persistent tightly spaced swell coming at us with an inch or two of chop on top of it… fun! We swam headlong into it towards the top of the pier and made good time despite the push back. Out at the tip of the pier we had a small group yelling questions at us about triathlons. At least they weren’t talking about sharks like the people from Saturday!

We worked on sighting the next buoy and picking alternative points to sight off of since we were pretty much guaranteed to lose the buoy in the chop with our faces in the water. I swam on the inside to herd Jen away from the pier since we had fisherman right there. It was a little awkward for me because I was breathing on my weak side and right into the chop… I got a couple less than pleasant mouthfuls, delicious :/

On top of the rough water there were boats in the way as well that made navigating a little harder and there were a few short legs off in the wrong directions but those were all quickly corrected. In working with a lot of beginners recently I think some of the most important parts of swimming in the ocean are all in your head. If you can relax, think, and adapt you’ll do just fine.

After making it to the creek buoy we turned it back in towards the pier and then home to the beach. On the way in I spotted a piece of nonnative fauna floating towards me… the invasive plasticus bottellus, my least favorite ocean species. I grabbed it, took the cap off so I could crush it, recapped it, and then swam back to the beach with it so I could throw it away instead of letting it continue its oceanic journey.

Post swim we stayed on the beach and chatted a bit while watching the ocean. I’ve talked with her about bait balls before and how if there’s a lot of bird activity in one area we’ll either go somewhere else or abandon a swim, but up till this point she hadn’t seen one. Well nature decided to put on a show out by the buoy in the kelp bed by fossil point. Probably upwards of a thousand birds were swirling and diving in a 50m circle. I’m glad they waited for us to have our fun before doing all that!

On Wednesday evening I was back out at the beach for our regular group training swim. We had 4 of us swimming – Niel, Ryan, Kim and myself. On my walk to the water I saw a bait ball in action on the right hand side of the pier so my route vote was “not over there.” We decided on swimming down the pier and then turning towards Fossil Point to see what happens.

Niel measured 62, but the water at the shore felt a lot colder. It got nicer further out, but the first 25m of ocean not so good. I took my sweet ass time getting in and then chased down Kim and tried to stay close to her since the water was pretty turbulent. It was a lot like Tuesday but amplified.

At the end of the pier we decided to swim for the end of the buoy line first so that we could all stay together since Kim wouldn’t have been in for a trip all the way to the point. Even with the swell pushing at our backs it didn’t seem to help much. I started right alongside Niel but at some point he decided to take a more creative line out towards the kelpy buoy! He figured it out before he hit the kelp, but Ryan and I did stop at one point just to make sure he was going to turn before we finished swimming to the right buoy. It’s kinda funny, a lot of us have been having navigational difficulties with that particular buoy. I think it’s because it blends into the background real well and if you aim for the buildings that look to be above it at the pier you can end up off track if your line isn’t really straight.

When we were all at the buoy we talked about what was next. The consensus was to swim it in. No one was super motivated to go all the way to the point and we didn’t want to leave Kim by herself to swim in solo. I swam alongside her on the way back into the glare of the sun and the chop. She was having sighting issues so I stopped her and changed the plan a bit. Instead of picking her head way up to not see anything anyways I had her sight off me and try to stretch out and relax a bit. See if she could build some better momentum and work a little smarter as opposed to harder. Keeping the head down by just looking at me helped a whole lot and her swimming looked a lot better. Now we just need to see if we can get that same low sighting in a forward direction!

At the buoy we all grouped up, nodded at each other and swam for the beach. I landed right behind some Russian sounding tourists who where getting really frustrated with boogie boards because they couldn’t catch anything. The perfectly timed wave showed up and I rode it all the way into like 6 inches of water, I think they found that a little demoralizing. Some weird bearded fat guy emerges from the ocean and out surfs them with no board :) Ultimately we didn’t swim that far… less that a mile… but we got our money’s worth out of those conditions.

I went out for a quick float in the ocean with Dani tonight down by the Pismo Pier… well at least it started there… by the time we got out we were half way to Grover Beach!

We got in and waded out a ways. The waves weren’t big but tightly spaced and the water was cold but not too bad. I took off kicking for the outer edge of where the waves were breaking and mixed amongst some surfers who weren’t so good at what they were doing. I made great efforts to keep my distance whenever one of them would attempt a take off because it wasn’t a take off so much as an overly dramatic board flinging maneuver. Yikes.

I caught a couple ok waves and kept looking for Dani when I was on top of swells. She normally keeps in a little closer to shore, but I couldn’t spot her. I rode a wave most of the way back to the beach and started looking around. She was waaaaaay down the beach. I started kicking my way down towards her which was a lot harder than it sounds. Traveling on a board parallel to the waves is kind of a bad deal. I made it down there eventually and worked on catching some rides down there. Oddly the waves were way better out in the middle of nothing.

We surfed a bunch of messy but growing waves and weaved in and out of some tourists hanging out closer to shore. While we were down there I busted out my zombie Lumix that I had temporarily resurrected. After about 2 months of drying out I charged the battery back up and it worked… well enough anyways. The lcd screen is totally shot and it makes crazy noises but I could take pictures. I managed to pop off 2 in water shots before it gave up and died again. Better than nothing I guess. The fun part is it smells like burning electronics now… haha… I really need to torture test waterproof cameras professionally.

Anyways, tomorrow I’ll be back in the ocean for a swim lesson and maybe even a bonus evening swim… we’ll see about that last one.